I’m a stay-at-home mom. This means my day starts around 6:30 a.m. when the baby wakes up. Often, my day starts earlier if the baby wakes up at 4 a.m., and I can’t fall back to sleep. My preschooler usually joins us in the kitchen around 7:00 a.m.
As a mom, you know that my day includes but is not limited to school runs, grocery shopping, butt-wiping, laundry, dry cleaning, paying bills, preparing meals, organizing play dates, organizing closets, picking up prescriptions, doctor’s appointments, vacuuming…I could go on, but you know the drill; you do it too.
Add to this, my name being called for smaller (but sometimes larger) requests no fewer than four thousand times a day, sometimes more. It’s a lot of fun being a mom. It’s extremely rewarding, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it’s also exhausting. It’s constant.
The level of energy and focus that my children require is extremely high. I also have a husband who enjoys my attention but works long hours, so he isn’t always available to relieve much of the parenting pressure. Thank God the cat doesn’t need much.
I try to go “off the clock” at a certain point in the day—around 9:00 p.m. I stop picking up toys and sweeping up Cheerios and work on my writing, pick up a book, or try to get current with a series on Netflix.
But if you’re a mom, you never really go “off the clock.” If your baby wakes up with a fever or your preschooler needs some water, there you are. Mom’s sick? You better take some DayQuil and get on with it. Sick days are not part of the benefits package offered by being a mother.
But if being a mother is a full-time job (and, at the moment, it is my full-time “job”), why shouldn’t you get some of the time off associated with a regular job? You wouldn’t work for a corporation that offered no sick time or vacation, would you? Of course not. Everyone needs a break to preserve their sanity and better enable them to do the job they’ve been hired to do.
I’m not talking about an hour a week for self-care — that yoga class or mani-pedi. Those are great; you deserve them, but they are not enough. I’m talking about a minimum of 24 hours without hearing the words “Mom,” “Mommy,” or “Honey” directed at you by someone who needs or expects something from you.
You need and deserve a mom-cation.
I’ve written about the importance of getting away as a couple, but this is for you and you alone—no partners allowed. You need time to do exactly what you want and only what you want.
If you’re a mom, you’re probably a people-pleaser, and if your partner is with you, you are likely to succumb to his or her needs at your own expense. On your Mom-cation, you should only watch a sci-fi or action film if that’s what you want to do. Meeting someone else’s needs before your own is forbidden.
I need a good balance of silence, exercise (preferably outside), and a little culture. Here are the rules.
- No one else is allowed on your mom-cation. Unless you want a girls’ weekend with someone who requires nothing more from you than company.
- It must be at least 24 hours. Ideally, you will treat yourself to a hotel with blackout curtains and room service.
- No alarm clocks. Unless you want to catch a beautiful sunrise.
- No work. No laundry, vacuuming, or drafting a budget proposal for your day job.
- If possible, Mom-cations should happen at least twice per year.
As you can see, the rules are pretty fluid. The only real rule is to take care of yourself alone. My first year as a mom, I could take a weekend to myself and head to an inn and spa in the Catskills. I got a massage, took a long bath, and ate dinner without feeding anyone else at the same time. It was heavenly.
The budget doesn’t always allow for such extravagance (although some savvy Groupon-ing was involved with that one), but I don’t need a fancy inn either. This last weekend, my husband packed up the kids and headed to his mother’s house. I ate my vegetarian dinner in silence, read a little, slept until 8:00 a.m., and took a four-mile walk in the sunshine.
I didn’t pick up a toy, wipe another person’s nose, or fold a piece of laundry. It was a struggle for me to step over those toys on the playroom floor, but it was worth it. My head was clear on my walk, and when I got home, my family was there. I felt rejuvenated and ready to give 100% of myself to them again. But I can’t do it without recharging those batteries, and I don’t think you should have to, either.
